THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The State Government passed a unanimous resolution in the Assembly on Thursday asking the Centre to not just pay up the dues of Rs 683.39 crore on account of MGNREGS wages but also to compensate workers for the non-payment of wages for over six months. “Under the Act, a worker has the right to get his wage within two weeks. Another clause in the MGNREG Act states that if wages are not provided within 15 days of preparing the muster roll, workers have to be provided compensation,” said the minister for local self government institutions Mr K. T. Jaleel.
Of the Rs 2146 crore the Centre has to provide the state for implementing MGREGS in 2016-17, only Rs 1386.70 crore has been granted. The state, as a result, was short of Rs 759.34 crore to pay the wages between October 2016, and March 31, 2017. Instead of paying up the dues in its full, the Centre transferred just Rs 122.83 crore on April 10, 2017. This took care of the October wages, but that of November to March remained unpaid. Therefore, together with the Rs 46.87 crore the state should get for work done this fiscal and the last fiscal's unpaid amount of Rs 636.52 crore, the total amount pending is Rs 683.39 crore. Besides, the advance amount the state had to be provided for the 4.5 crore man-days it has to create in 2017-18 has also not been transferred.
The resolution emphasised the discrimination meted out to the state. “On the day the Centre sanctioned just 16 percent (Rs 122.83 crore) of the arrears owed to the state, other states in the country were sanctioned their entire entitlements,” it said. There are 32.39 lakh job card holders in the state under MGNREGS. Of this, 18.34 lakh families are active participants in the programme. More than 90 per cent of workers under the scheme in the state are women.The resolution said that the lack of wages had pushed hundreds of households into a serious crisis on the eve of school reopening.
